This turgid drama, solely designed to titillate male audiences, move from one hare-brained scene after another with intermittent over-acting, ear-splitting background music, and over-the-top dialoguebaazi, sighs Mayur Sanap.
In 2016, Pink conveyed an important social message centred on consent: 'No means no!'
The consent is absolute, and if a woman says No, it only means No.
In Director-Writer Milap Zaveri's Ek Deewane Ki Deewaniyat, we have a hero playing a jilted lover whose obsession for a woman is passed off as 'passionate love'.
The very concept of consent does not exist in this world because what's love without some madness?
Deewaniyat is devoted to this trashy thought in a preposterous 'romance' that ticks off the worst of 1990s Bollywood clichés that's only infuriating, forget swooning or emotionally stirring.
Harshvardhan Rane plays power-obsessed, hotshot politician Vikramaditya Bhonsle.
He falls head over heels for Bollywood superstar Adaa Randhawa (Sonam Bajwa) the moment he sees her.
What starts off with a promise of swoony romance abruptly shifts gears to a creepy-boyfriend thriller.
Adaa rejects Vikramaditya'S marriage proposal, who then resorts to extreme measures.
She is thrown out of films.
Her family is humiliated.
Her career takes a nosedive.
The hero, the perpetrator behind her perils, is still presented with a gaze of sympathy who ruefully (and repeatedly) asks her: 'Why don't you want to marry me?'
This push-and-pull between the leads goes on for two-and-a-half hours of runtime, where every emotion, dialogue, expression, song is dialled up to make you believe you are watching the ultimate heartbreak story.
In the post Saiyaara landscape of Bollywood, the word 'intense' is liberally garnished over romantic musicals. Zaveri and his writing partner Mushtaq Shiekh take this as a base keyword to play around with our sympathies.
It's troubling to see how the film fails to determine Vikram as a problematic guy, who should ideally get nothing but urgent psychiatric help.
Vikram is emotionally torturing Adaa, but at least he won't force himself on her.
He sends goons to terrorise her family, but at least he first respectfully sent them a marriage proposal.
The film finds an implausible excuse to justify his behaviour that stems from his toxic father (a hammy Sachin Khedekar, channelling Anil Kapoor from Animal).
Harshvardhan's unhinged character grows increasingly monstrous in Darr-style trappings of an obsessed lover, only for Adaa to show her feminine rage (aurat ki sanak, as the film's dialogue goes).
Fed up of his troubling advances, she then makes an unbelievably daft public declaration: 'I will spend a night with anyone who kills Vikram.'
Girl, WHAT?!
The truth is, this is a stunningly misconceived and mishandled film that has no respect for its woman. And neither for the filmmaking craft.
The turgid drama, solely designed to titillate male audiences, move from one hare-brained scene after another with intermittent over-acting, ear-splitting background music, and over-the-top dialoguebaazi that rivals Zaveri's earlier film Marjaavaan.
Sample this: 'Power se zyada power pyaar mein hain.'
Or
'Adaa sirf meri hain!' -- which at least four random people scream their lungs out because why should the hero have all the fun?
Harshvardhan Rane plays along the mass hero zone in the contrast to his green-flag boyfriend from Sanam Teri Kasam, but terribly overacts in this grey role.
Sonam Bajwa has presence, and does a tad better than Rane. She tries to do her best within the limitation of her character, but can't overshadow the sheer awfulness of the script and direction.
Shaad Randhawa plays Sanjay, Vikramaditya's confidant, and his purpose is primarily to look delighted, surprised, or shocked, depending on what Vikramaditya is doing in that scene.
Before the film wraps up, Ek Deewane Ki Deewaniyat also finds a spot to insert random messaging on women's agency and empowerment that feels completely out of place.
What a pretentious way to salvage the film from its own banality!
Save your precious time.
Ek Deewane Ki Deewaniyat Review Rediff Rating: 
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